As an increasing number of applications and services are being made available over networks such as the Internet, an increasing number of content, application, and/or service providers are turning to shared-resource technologies such as cloud computing and distributed data centers. Cloud computing, in general, is an approach to providing access to electronic resources through services, such as Web services, where the hardware and/or software used to support those services is dynamically scalable to meet the needs of the services at any given time. A user or customer typically will rent, lease, or otherwise pay for access to resources through the cloud, and thus does not have to purchase and maintain the hardware and/or software to provide access to these resources.
In many instances a customer will want a dedicated network space that is isolated from other users or entities. Such an approach leads to difficulties with providers of various network appliances and appliance services, for example, where the provider requires specific types of communication with an appliance in order for the appliance/service to operate as intended, such as to communicate with the vendor outside the dedicated space and/or other instances of an appliance within the dedicated space. A customer owning a dedicated customer network space can potentially alter or restrict certain types of traffic, which can lead to problems with the appliance/service in that space. Further, because the appliance or service is using resources that are dedicated to the customer, the customer will typically be charged for such usage even when the appliance is communicating for reasons that should not be billed to the customer.